Being a list of cartoonist terms coined by Mort Walker, collected in
The Lexicon of Comicana, 1980.
"It started out as a joke for the National Cartoonists Society magazine. I
spoofed the tricks cartoonists use, like dust clouds when characters are running or lightbulbs over their heads when they get an idea. . . . I spent many hours at the
museum going over old cartoons and recording their 'language.' I created
pseudoscientific names for each cartoon [cliché], like the sweat marks cartoon characters radiate. I called them '
plewds,' after the god of rain, 'Joe Pluvius.' I considered it a humor book. When it came out, I looked for it in the humor section of a bookstore and finally found it in Art Instruction. I inquired and they said 'What's funny about it?' I said, 'The names.' They said, 'We didn't know what those things were called.' I said, 'They weren't called anything till I called them that.' It was another case of
satire falling flat. I gave up and am selling it now as an instruction book. -- Mort Walker,
Mort Walker's Private Scrapbook